Blogging Shattered my Fantasy

What a wonderful way to start the day! Fresh eggs and milk for breakfast. The scent of freshly baked bread or biscuits. Down covered ducks, sweet yellow chicks, puppies, kittens and goats running around. Growing your own fruits and vegetables. Doesn’t it sound like a wonderful life? I always thought so.

Then I started blogging and following several blogs about farming. While these women do live enviable lives in beautiful surroundings, they work very, very hard. They have to watch the weather reports to make sure all the animals are warm and safely tucked away in their barns. They have to make sure there is the right mix of water for the plants. They worry over droughts and floods. They worry about coyotes and other wild life. And I'm sure they wouldn't want to give it up for an easier life.

Before they can have freshly baked bread and biscuits, they have to milk the cows and worry if they will receive a fair price for their milk and produce. After having a tease of Spring, they must worry about the seedlings and the frost that is sure to follow in March. Then there’s the worry about the ice dams in the stream.

The sheep have to be shorn, the wool either cleaned and spun on site, or sent to a specialist for processing. The eggs have to be collected and separated. The non-fertilized eggs can be sold or used for eating or baking, the others sent to the incubator and hope there will be no power failure that will chill the incubator and ruin all the eggs.

During the growing season, the vegetables and fruits must be harvested. Some will be preserved for winter, some will be eaten and hopefully, some will be sold (if the harvest is good).

I’ve been following several farm blogs such as Life on a Southern Farm, Hidden Haven Homestead, Northview Diary, A Cowboy’s Wife, Tylerfarm Homestead, Ash Lane Farm and then there others where I just drop in. These women work very hard, I wish I had their dedication.

I still envy these women, but I now have a new respect for farmers. I guess, for me, farm life will have to remain a fantasy.